


The Scent of Domesticity

by NB_Cecil



Series: Doctors and Lizards [35]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: A Stitch in Time - Andrew Robinson, Bathing/Washing, Domestic Fluff, Flirting in Cardassian, Fluff, Garak’s obsession with Human literature, Implied/Referenced Smut, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Orchids, POV Kelas Parmak, Poetry, Post-Canon Cardassia, Post-Slash, Scents & Smells, post-dominion war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 09:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20864039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NB_Cecil/pseuds/NB_Cecil
Summary: Set duringA Stitch in Time. Where Garak writes letters he doesn’t send, Parmak whispers into the dark while Garak sleeps.





	The Scent of Domesticity

Elim stirred in his sleep, pulling the threadbare blanket toward his face in an attempt to shield it from the dust the hot, dry night breeze was blowing in through the permanently-ajar door. Kelas pulled him close, pressing their foreheads together and arranged the blanket to half-cover their faces, protecting them from the worst of the dust. He took a slow, deep breath, savouring the rich, earthy scent of expensive soap mingled with the faint tang of now-dried semen streaked across Kelas’ thighs and belly and the delicate floral aroma of red leaf tea on Elim’s breath. 

_____

That morning, during their search of a partially-collapsed house in Coranum, their team had dug their way into a well-stocked pantry and paused their work to gather as many cans of _tojal_, drums of fuel, packets of dried fish and red leaf tea, bottles of _rokassa_ juice and _kanar_, and cakes of soap as they could carry, stuffing them into pockets and shoulder bags before resuming their work. When they broke through to the kitchen they had found the entire household—seven children and five adults—huddled together under a heap of masonry. The remainder of their shift had been spent excavating, identifying and burying the corpses, searching in vain in the adjoining garden for _perek_, and performing the chant for the dead.

Kelas and Elim had trudged home to Elim’s rickety shed, weary and dusty under the hot afternoon sun and their heavy load, and laid out their haul on an old tablecloth spread over the floor. It had been several weeks since either had had anything more than the quickest of stand-up washes with a smearing of soap over a bucket of tepid water. Kelas longed to wash the grease and muck out of his hair, so they dragged an ancient terminium bath into the shed and heated rainwater from the collection butt on the stove. After they had both bathed, making liberal use of the luxury soap, they utilised the water to wash their filthy clothes. Elim stripped the sheets and blanket off his pallet bed and washed them too, hanging them around the cramped living space, the hot, dry Cardassian summer air and the heat from the stove making swift work of drying them out. 

After a meal of _tojal_ eaten straight from the can and washed down with _rokassa_ juice, Kelas had sat in the only chair—a high backed armchair with a sagging seat and ripped upholstery—combing his hair out while Elim reclined on the pallet, reading Earth poet Jackie Kay’s _Keeping Orchids_ aloud from a battered padd, pontificating on it until the screen flickered and died. They played _kotra_ and drank tea, Elim—with a mischievous glint in his eye—making snide comments about the foolishness of Kelas’ moves; and Kelas replying with a smirk and a brush of his fingertips over the back of Elim’s hand that “_kotra_ isn’t all about the winning, but the insight it affords into the mind of one’s opponent”. The devastation of the city, the morning’s gruesome discovery and the subsequent burials seemed far away to Kelas as he laughed and flirted, the sleeve of his too-big borrowed undershirt catching a _kotra_ piece and knocking it over as he reached for his tea. Elim’s admonishment of “I hope you’re not trying to cheat, my dear,” and it’s accompanying lascivious grin almost had Kelas knocking the tea over as well. 

The bedding had dried by the time the evening light faded to the point the _kotra_ pieces were no longer visible in the gloom. Despite Elim’s comments about Kelas’ ineptitude at the game, they had in fact reached a stalemate. Knowing Elim was far too stubborn to concede a draw, and longing to luxuriate in clean sheets, Kelas had made a show of bowing to Elim’s superior skill as a player and, having “no desire to undergo a humiliating defeat,” he forfeited the game. He’d washed up the teapot and cups while Elim fussed over getting hospital corners just so on a sheet with a tear down the middle covering a thin mattress on a wooden pallet in the corner of a shed whose door didn’t close properly.  


Later, lying in the dark on the narrow pallet with Elim groaning into his neck ridges, pressing his eversion urgently into Kelas’ palm, Kelas had marvelled at the little corner of unremarkable domesticity their morning’s find had allowed them to carve out among the chaos and destruction the Dominion had wrought on the city.

_____

And now, with Elim’s back rising and falling under his hand in the slow, steady breathing of deep sleep, savouring that scent of detergent, tea and sex, Kelas pressed his _chufa_ to Elim’s and murmured words by another Earth writer, “I feel I can give you everything without giving myself away, I whispered in your basement bed. If one does one's solitude right, this is the prize”.

**Author's Note:**

> Jackie Kay’s _Keeping Ochids_ can be found [ here](https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/keeping-orchids/).
> 
> The line Kelas whispers in the dark is a quote I saw on Twitter today from Maggie Nelson’s _The Argonauts_.


End file.
